Tennessee Tyranny: Fingerprinting During Routine Traffic Stops

Now they’ll be fingerprinting us for jaywalking. Or “speeding.” Just about any (formerly minor) traffic violation.

Beginning in the once-fine state of Tennessee. Southerners, it appears, are becoming just as statist as the Yankee carpetbaggers they used to (rightly) despise.

Two bills have made their way through the rancid colon of the TN House and Senate, HB2220 and SB2153, respectively, that would “… authorize(s) use of fingerprints as (a) form of acknowledgment, in lieu of, or in addition to, a person’s signature for citations and certain other notices and documents.” (See http://www.capitol.tn.gov and type in the bill numbers.)

In plain language, when you get pulled over or stopped by a cop for some trivial reason such as doing 5 mph over the limit in a Radar Trap Zone, the cop — at his discretion — may compel you, the offender, to submit to being fingerprinted “in lieu of, or in addition to” your signature on the summons.

Tennessee’s tyranny is the first such action of its kind in these forcibly united States — and has aroused a popular groundswell of resentment and resistance. Understandably.

Fingerprinting starts with an “F” — because generally, the accepted practice has been that only felons, or those accused of committing felonies, get inked. Fingerprints go into a national criminal database, so that in the future it will be easier and simpler to track and identify the activities of felons.

But jaywalkers, U-turn bandits and speeders?

Hell, under TN’s new cornpone jackbootery, a person could be fingerprinted merely for spitting on the sidewalk, in violation of town ordinance Barney Fife 5, Section 3a.

It would be humorous, maybe a little bit, if it weren’t so obnoxious to common sense and civil liberties.

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